Advice concerning site notice

This is certainly a legal issue, however there is a possibility that development that hadnt been stated on the site notice, or on the paper, may be considered unauthorised at this stage. it may be worth contacting the enforcement section for their views on this.

“omission of an extension from the site notice”

Are you sure the extension is not an exempted development, Deaglean?

Yes, absolutely certain. The drawings show the extension to the front of the property. I doubt that that would be classified as an exempted development. The main concern is that the local authority made no reference in the planners report concerning the submission we lodged highlighing the fact that the newspaper and site notices contained different development descriptions.

Are they obliged to comment on this when it was brought to their attention by us?

no they are not.
once the application passes validation then the planner has to accept it as being so.

similarly, validation issues generally are not considered by the bord either, unless there is a clear documented breach of the planning act…

the info youve given is very ambiguous…. are you saying that on the third attempt to apply for the same development the application was finally validated??? are you saying that the site notice did not include the phrasing ‘extension to front of dwelling’????

that disclaimer you are referring to counts for nothing in this case.

at the end of the day its up to the council to accept or not, whether the description matches the proposed development.

Isn’t this what the planning authority should adhere to?

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT REGULATIONS, 2006

26. (3) (b) the notice in the newspaper or the site notice, because of its content or for any other reason, is misleading or inadequate for the information of the public.

the planning application shall be invalid.

yes they should, but its their call….. (more specifically, its the call of the person who validates the applications, be they trained or not)…

What explanation did the council give?

Did you give them a ring?

This application was validated by an appointed officer in the planning office. It is my understanding that after this validation the application can only then be deemed invalid by the planner if the erected site notice upon inspection of the site is misleading or is not an accurate discription of the proposed works.
Just two months ago I had an application declared invalid by an incredibly fussy planner following her site inspection. We got the notification the day that we expected the grant to come through!

Just goes to show how planners differ Davids. The site notice lodged with the application was the same as the one that was on public display and the applicaion was declared valid after a visit by someone from the LA on a friday, three days before closing date for submissions.

The planner noted in her report that the site notice was ‘adequately displayed’. However, as i’ve stated no reference was made to the description of the proposed development on the site notice which differed from that on the newspaper notice.

In answer to your question forrestreid, no I didn’t ring the Council. After the application was validated, my family emailed quite a few members of the LA to seek their opinion on what the procedure was which permitted the validation of a planning application which involved a misleading description on a site notice. This we felt may have alienated many other members of the public from also lodging submissions as the description on the site notice only described permission for a two storey extension to the gable end of dwelling and as it is a local authority housing estate, we are now in a situation whereby a precedent may be set for future development in all such estates in the county. We received only two replies to our emails , both stating that they were going to speak with the senior planner to investigate the matter and will revert to us immediately on doing so, unfortunately for some reason we never heard anything further back from them.

The description that was displayed for the information of the public on the site notice didn’t correspond with the description of the development on the newspaper notice and on the drawings lodged with the application.

Basically we feel that a maladministration error was committed and the LA will not admit to it.

Is there any course of action open to us whereby under planning legislation the LA must explain why this application was validated despite containing a major description discrepancy?

what was the extension to the front of the dwelling?? a single storey porch perhaps??

how did the newspaper notice differ from the site notice?? did it mention the extension to the front of the dwelling??

its frustrating when LAs will invalidate applications because of typos, yet will never accept liability when they make a mistake.

“what was the extension to the front of the dwelling?? a single storey porch perhaps??”

good point henno.

Remember deaglan, a single storey porch may be an exempt development if it is small, in which case you might have no real grounds for complaint.

Was the extension at the front definitely larger than 2 square metres, deaglan?

The main function of a site notice in my opinion is to “alert” one that a development is proposed on that particular site and that the wording would be simple and brief. If people are interested/concerned about the development they should inspect the application, either on the web or in the planning office.

Is it getting to the stage where the planning application documentation needs to be available for inspection along side the site notice on the site, or to published in full in the newspaper with the newspaper notice?

If as you say jackscout

The main function of a site notice in my opinion is to “alert” one that a development is proposed on that particular site and that the wording would be simple and brief.

Just for your attention on a previous development proposed on the same site the description on both the newspaper and site notice was published as follows:

a) and complete porch to front of house and b) retain and complete extension to front of house adjoining the porch, which consists of demolishing side wall as constructed and re-constructing this wall set back from the centre line of the party wall as shown on submitted drawings

As you can see it is a lenghty enought description, nevertheless, it descriped the proposed works accurately and matched precisely the site notice on public display.

I take it that in many cases the site notice draws the publics attention to the fact that a developer intends to build and upon reading it many will then decide if indeed the development warrants lodging a submission on or not.

In the particular case I’ve highlighted, and I must emphasise that I made my initail post hoping that someone would be aware of the importance of a site notice and therefore offer any advice on the situation whereby if the description of the site notice differs from that on the newspaper notice is misleading would there not be a case for an application being invalidated.

The developemt that was on the site notice was for permission for a ‘two storey extension to side gable end of dwelling’, however the newspaper notice was for a ‘two storey extension to front and side gable end of dwelling’.

Gable end extensions are not uncommon in the estate where I live. Front extensions, however, are. Even the LA in their guidance notes state when referring to the development description

A brief but accurate description of the nature and extent of the development

There is a front extension in the drawings, (not a porch) and it is this aspect that I was addressing as the public were not aware from the site notice that a front extension was being proposed and therefore the site notice was misleading.

I realise we’re all entitled to our opinion but in the circumstances and dealing specifically with planning and development regulations it is conclusive tha the planner failed to address this issue and all I wanted to know is there any alternative whether it be legal or otherwise where my family and myself may obtain a satisfactory answer from the planning authority as to the reason they validated the aforementioned application when it clearly contained a misleading development description.

is this the thing you were on about before?

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=5948